Where Advertising Will Go Next

In 2006, Esquire honored David Droga, the founder of a small ad agency named Droga5, as one of its Best & Brightest and worked with him to launch the Tap Project, a clean-water initiative for UNICEF. Now, seven years and one minority-stake sale to William Morris Endeavor later, we asked Droga (who remains creative chairman of Droga5) to assess the state of his industry.

Anyone who's ever failed to close a pop-up knows that advertising today is more about interruption and intrusion than compelling narratives or a good laugh. We don't add value. If anything, we often take it away.

But all that's going to change. Because it has to. Because it's harder than ever to hold anyone's attention for longer than a split second. Because mergers across our industry, like the one earlier this year between Publicis and Omnicom, are being done in the name of efficiency, not creativity. Because over the past fifteen years, many of those who get paid to practice what's considered the third-least-ethical profession in the country have gotten cynical in our thinking. In fact, no industry works harder at being lazy.

It's time advertising executives got the memo.

THE STRONGEST STORY WINS

Name the strongest man in America. I bet the first image that comes to mind is the Hulk. Or Superman. Paul Bunyan, even. Not Derek Poundstone, three-time winner of the America's Strongest Man competition and the only real person in this paragraph. That's because no one gives a shit about Derek. Only the strongmen with the strongest narratives stand the test of time.

It's not rocket science: The best ads tell great stories. They look and feel like the content you're already consuming. They invite you in. They make you laugh. They teach you something. They also sell. The ingredients for great advertising haven't changed since the Mad Men era: Brands win if their advertising is relevant and people like it.

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Gentlemen of the jury, I present the following:

PRUDENTIAL'S DAY-ONE STORIES

Remember the last life-insurance ad you saw? Let me remind you: It featured salt-and-pepper models draped in cashmere on fifty-foot yachts. That's not what getting older looks like for real Americans. Prudential created hundreds of hours of content documenting people on their first day of retirement. The results are arresting and human. (Full disclosure: Droga5 did this.)

OLD SPICE: THE MAN YOUR MAN COULD SMELL LIKE

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Turns out 60 percent of men's body washes are actually purchased by women. This will come as no surprise to those of you who can't even remember to buy toilet paper. So Old Spice went after women. With Isaiah Mustafa's muscles. And a towel.

Life insurance and man fresheners: What do these things have in common? They all tell rewarding, surprising, great stories that connect directly with human beings, not "consumers" or "clients."

DAVID VERSUS GOLIATH (SPOILER ALERT: DAVID WINS.)

In the past, the size of an agency mattered. Big brands wouldn't even look at ad agencies unless they carried a big stick. But now, in an age when Netflix can win an Emmy, many clients are craving fresh thinking and output and finding them with smaller, more nimble agencies that are throwing themselves into uncharted waters to find new ways of doing things.

Panic buttons are being pressed at every legacy company around the world, and unless the Goliaths (like, say, the newly formed Publicis Omnicom Group) invest in research and development that will reinvent their business, they're going to continue trafficking in dead-end, middle-of-the-road output.

Now, a huge number of clients are happy with that approach, but they're fast becoming a minority. Creativity is a game changer. That's true of society, in advertising and in life. It's the daydreamers that change things, and today the little guys have the best chance of reaping the rewards.

FIGURE OUT MOBILE. NOW.

Your cell phone never leaves your side. It knows more about you than your parents combined. Pretty soon, it'll read your mind. It's the holy grail for advertisers: a portable screen you can buy things on.

Funnily enough, mobile advertising right now is the lowest common denominator. It's intrusive and downright awful 99.9 percent of the time. No one has figured out how to advertise on mobile in a way that doesn't make you throw up in your mouth.

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We need to figure this out, the sooner the better. The first brand that can purpose-build great stories for mobile, that can target in a relevant but noncreepy way and understand that it's the individual that matters, not the algorithm, is the first brand to win mobile and, possibly, the future.

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